An Entertaining Tale of Quadrupeds

Nicholas and Baloglou have here produced a thorough study of a 14th-century 'popular' Byzantine poem concerning an assembly of herbivores and carnivores at the behest of King Lion... Reproductions of the drawings from the one illustrated manuscript of the tale are provided, along with textual notes, six appendixes, an extensive bibliography, and an index of Greek words... Clearly a labor of love. Choice The interest of this work is the insights it provides into various aspects of the life of the time...The introduction and commentary to the translation are both substantial and extensively researched, and would be a great resource for someone wishing to follow up any of these areas... a good read for those interested in the popular culture and daily life of the Eastern Roman Empire. Medieval History Both authors have a vision and an unequivocal perspective, which they have followed from the first page to the last: bringing a modern interested reader close to a mediaeval poem. They do this with a breath of fresh air, which blows away the traditional philologists' dust. -- Hans Eideneier Byzantinische Zeitschrift An Entertaining Tale of Quadrupeds definitely belongs in university libraries and could be used as a textbook in courses on Byzantine Greek literature and late medieval writing in general--in spite of a certain repetitiousness. Fifteenth Century Studies

Nick Nicholas is a research fellow in the Department of Linguistics and Applied Linguistics at the University of Melbourne, Australia, and a contributor to the Thesaurus Linguae Graecae project at the University of California, Irvine.George Baloglou is an associate professor of mathematics at the State University of New York, Oswego.